A full-time college faculty member in the Maricopa Community Colleges since 1970, Gene Fazio holds a master's degree in English and in reading from Arizona State University. He was the recipient of two Mesa Community College awards for teaching excellence (Employee Recognition Award for Excellence in Service-1995, Faculty Excellence Award-2000), and one for Innovator of the Year (1994). In addition, the Maricopa chapter of the NAACP awarded him the Image Award for Education (1997).

In 2004, the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation of the Maricopa Community Colleges awarded him the "Foundation Employee Recognition Award." He led a team of faculty members that developed two nationally-published English software programs: GRAMMAR TOOLS (1995) and WRITING TUTOR IV (1997). Both programs were adopted by the NCAA's Life Skills/Champs Program. He is also the lead author of a developmental composition textbook Practicing Paragraphs, published by Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston in 1990.

He currently has a United States Patent pending for an innovative methodology for tutoring reading and writing called Coaching Literacy™.